Astromets Mind in 2015

            As the 2014-15 MLB offseason comes to a close, I find myself eager to come out of my baseball hibernation and re-immerse myself in the world of everything Mets, which includes getting back to blogging here at Astromets Mind. I never intended to stop writing this past offseason, but after my computer died last October and I completely lost a number of pieces that I had started, I just did not have the heart to restart my work. I haven’t started work on anything new yet, but as I mentioned, I’m eager to get back to it.

            My first season blogging seemed relatively successful, and I hope to improve upon my product this year. Per the blogger statistics page, I managed more than 20,000 site views over my ~5.5 months of writing and 274 posts, and continued to get some hits during the offseason. I didn’t get a whole lot of feedback from you readers last year, though the little I did get was very encouraging. That said, I am completely open to any criticisms or suggestions you may have, and you can either leave your comments in the section below or reach me on twitter at @Astromets31.

One thing I hope to figure out before the season starts is how to edit gifs so that they don’t keep looping unless you, the reader, wants them to. As you may have noticed, I like to post a lot of gifs during minor league game recaps, and that can really lag the loading of my site. Ideally, I’d like the gifs to only loop when you point your mouse over them, like over at amazinavenue, but if I can’t figure that out within the blogger format, then I may have to resort to posting vines.

As for what I’ve been doing since I last wrote here: as a Clemson Tigers fan thanks to my time there in graduate school, I enjoyed watching another successful football season culminating with a near perfect win in the Russell Athletic Bowl. Even though they ended up with 3 losses for the season, it seemed like they were good enough to go undefeated had they been able to send Deshaun Watson out there every game – they did have the #1 ranked defense in the nation, which included a former lab student of mine in Robert Smith. For the record, Smith was one of the hardest working students I’ve ever met (he majored in Health Sciences, which was not an easy schedule) and I think he’ll prove a hidden gem for whichever NFL team takes a chance on him. Before I went to Clemson I had never been much of a football fan, so I didn’t really follow the NFL season this season – my Giants weren’t good and the Falcons (my current local team) weren’t either. I’ve been a Knicks fan nearly as long as I’ve been a Mets fan, but this season has been much rougher than I expected. Still, I’ve watched nearly every game, and there have been some bright spots along the way (bright may be a stretch, not as dim may be more appropriate). I might choose to expand upon my Knicks-related thoughts soon. I’ve been enjoying my second season of Clemson basketball, although their ‘offense’ can be more than a bit frustrating to watch at times, and I miss watching KJ McDaniels’ explosiveness on that end. Looks like another deep NIT run may be in their future this season, which would probably be better in the long-term for their young talent (specifically Jaron Blossomgame and Dante Grantham) than a quick exit from the NCAA tourney. I can’t think of any really good TV programs or movies that I’ve watched since October, perhaps you have some suggestions.

Although pitchers and catchers don’t report for the Mets for another week, College Baseball begins this weekend and, as you may be guessing, I am interested in following the Clemson Tigers baseball team this year. I haven’t really followed college baseball in the past, so I’m still looking for websites that offer good coverage and I’m not sure how many games will be available to watch online/TV. It appears the Tigers are ranked in the 25-30 range nationally pre-season, and they have a few solid players to watch – most notably Junior outfielder Steven Duggar, who is on the pre-season Golden Spikes Award Watch list of 50. Hopefully watching some college ball will help me offer some insight come draft time, but I’m mostly just interested in rooting for the Tigers.

So keep your eyes peeled for more Astromets Mind coverage to come. Mets and Mets minor’s coverage will continue to be my main concern here, though I hope to offer a little more this year.